Friday, 31 July 2009

At the same time he’s weakened his promised reforms about lobbyist participation, Obambi gets carried away with “free meal” rules, absurdly reversing them:

Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office.

But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president.

The White House defended the unusual move as a way to avoid conflicts of interest. But the Bush administration didn’t charge presidential guests for meals, one former official said, and at least one etiquette expert found the whole thing unseemly – suggesting it was a serious breach of protocol.

I guess that “loaves and fishes” thing isn’t working like it was supposed to ... (Via InstaPundit.)

“I don’t think we should be crying great big tears about the insurance industry,” Reid said at a Capitol Hill press conference when asked whether insurance companies should be allowed to charge higher premiums for people with preexisting conditions.

“There is no business in America that makes more money than the insurance industry--over the last 10 years their profits have been increased by 450 percent,” Reid said. “So I’m not really in very much of a mood to worry about the insurance industry.”

Controlled, measured. A complete lie, but it sounds much less crazy. Fox News reported the industry was making lower profits than Wal-Mart. And don’t evil oil companies make more money than anybody?

Doctor Krauthammer performs an autopsy on Obamacare, and assesses its stunted twin:

Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he’s fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health-care reform dead. If you believed the first idiocy -- and half the mainstream media did -- you’ll believe the second. Don’t believe either.

Conventional wisdom always makes straight-line projections. They are always wrong. Yes, Obama’s aura has diminished, in part because of overweening overexposure. But by year’s end he will emerge with something he can call health-care reform. The Democrats in Congress will pass it because they must. Otherwise, they’ll have slain their own savior in his first year in office.

But that bill will look nothing like the massive reform Obama originally intended. The beginning of the retreat was signaled by Obama’s curious reference -- made five times -- to “health-insurance reform” during his July 22 news conference.

Reforming the health-care system is dead. Cause of death? Blunt trauma administered not by Republicans, not even by Blue Dog Democrats, but by the green eyeshades at the Congressional Budget Office.

An especially amusing detail:

Though it must be admitted that the White House itself added to the farcical nature of its frantic and futile cost-cutting when budget director Peter Orszag held a three-hour brainstorming session with Senate Finance Committee aides trying to find ways to save. “At one point,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas.”

To most Americans, the tax code is an abomination, to these guys it’s a menu of fresh tyrannies.

It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.

For his part, Sgt. Crowley had only some cryptic comments about future meetings and “moving forward.” Hmmm.

My speculation: This future activity can’t be about a lawsuit from either party; Crowley wouldn’t be meeting with Gates. Instead their attorneys, and attorneys for the City of Cambridge, would be meeting. I think the “great opportunity” to be realized is the documentary Gates had originally proposed, but with a twist. Sgt. Crowley will no longer be outside the tent pissing in, he’ll be inside the tent pissing out.

Think about it. A documentary solely from Gates’s doctrinaire perspective, after he’s been so thoroughly exposed as a race-obsessed hysteric and opportunist, just wouldn’t fly. Sgt. Crowley will be made part of the team—and get a cut of the take. He is a racial profiling avoidance trainer, so he has some legitimate claim to expertise. His participation will drive interest, but the documentary will end up being the same old left-wing nonsense. Gates would not have it otherwise.

The gubmint’s “Cash for Clunkers” program always seemed a bit generous to me, offering $4,500 for old, gas guzzling cars their owners would like to be rid of in the first place. Now there’s this:

The government’s popular “cash for clunkers” program may be running out of money after only a matter of days as car shoppers flock to dealerships to take advantage of the rebates.

The White House said Thursday it was assessing its options amid concerns the $1 billion budget for rebates for new car sales may have been depleted. The program officially began last week and has been heavily publicized by automakers and dealers.

Transportation Department officials called lawmakers earlier Thursday to alert them of plans to suspend the program as early as Friday. But a White House official said later the program had not been suspended and they were reviewing their options to keep the program funded.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said they were working to “assess the situation facing what is obviously an incredibly popular program. Auto dealers and consumers should have confidence that all valid CARS transactions that have taken place to date will be honored.”

Herein we see the difference between pols and businessmen. The pol says the program is “incredibly popular.” A businessman would say “you’re overpaying, dumbass” and reduce the payments. Of course the pol is spending your money, not his own.

A car salesman summarizes: “If they can’t administer a program like this, I’d be a little concerned about my health insurance.” (Via Drudge.)

Thursday, 30 July 2009

The hilarious tale of how the Brits added US radio talker Michael Savage to their list of “banned from Britain” jihad promoters to give it some “balance.” A judge may have the last word on this, a word with a pound sign in front of it. (Via NRO Corner.)

A loyal reader passes along news of a “Hot for Teacher” case from California:

Former Tustin High School personal trainer, Hope Ashley Jacoby, 24, was today sentenced to three years of informal probation and 240 hours of community service, after pleading guilty to four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and three counts of oral copulation with a minor.

Jacoby admitted to having sex with a 16-year-old male student in her car and at her home on several different occasions throughout 2008.

Sounds as if she’s been servicing the community plenty already. (And what sort of Beautiful People community hires personal trainers for students?)

School officials learned of the relationship when pictures of Jacoby were found on the student’s phone.

The nature of those photos being a tantalizing detail the reporter left hanging.

The prosecution, led by Deputy District Attorney Nikki Buracchio, asked Judge Gregory W. Jones for a more substantial punishment considering the position of trust Jacoby held as a trainer at the school, before handing out the sentence.

But Judge Jones ruled against the DA’s office wishes.

All of Jacoby’s offenses are considered felonies, but were reduced to misdemeanors on account of what Judge Jones considered “a totally consensual relationship.”

“Totally consensual”? Dude, like it is Southern California.

Judge Jones described the student as a “willing participant” and “somewhat enthusiastic” about his relationship with the defendant. He also noted that the student “engaged in deception” in an effort to have the relationship continue for as long as it did.

I’m shocked, shocked to learn that 16-year-old boys are eager to get blowjobs from 24-year-old women and even lie about it. What is this country coming to?

The student was permitted an opportunity to make a victim-impact statement at the hearing today, but did not make an appearance in court.

Complaining about sex after the fact is just bad form.

Jones also noted that in 34 states, the age of consent is 16. He said the defendant did break the law in California, where the age of consent is 18, but would consider his own behavior to be derelict if he did not take into consideration all factors, including what he called the insignificant age gap, and the ability for 16-year-olds to be tried as adults when they commit felonies in some cases.

Now there’s some judicial activism. Let me apply the much simpler Libertyblog standard: The Rule of 24. The young man was 16, and therefore the woman must be a least an 8 on a scale of 10 to avoid punishment.

My reader passed along only a news account with a mug shot—a deliberate attempt to mislead this court?—but some quick Googling revealed thesephotos. It’s a close call, but I’ll give the defendant the benefit of the doubt based on her cleavage. Not guilty. She is advised to stay away from 15-year-olds and fried foods if she continues shopping in the teen department.

Whatever the bounce from a “stimulus,” the Dem plans are a long-term economic disaster. A case in point:

How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program’s first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state’s accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.

Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November’s election, according to interviews.

The department’s career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of its members after the government had already won a default judgment in federal court against the men.

Front-line lawyers were in the final stages of completing that work when they were unexpectedly told by their superiors in late April to seek a delay after a meeting between political appointees and career supervisors, according to federal records and interviews.